Getting dangerously close to the parallel hot take on Twitter that going around that calling Trump mentally ill is harmful to "actual" (or depending on your viewpoint, "other") mentally ill people, because it reinforces the notion that mentally ill people are dangerous. I don't want to go careening facefirst into that boondoggle, but for my money: No, motherfucker, letting him go around damaging people's lives on account of his apparent condition, unmanaged and untreated, reinforces the notion that mentally ill people are dangerous.

I mean while we're not exactly a news site or anything I DO honestly believe that it is unprofessional as hell for anyone other than a normal citizen on like twitter or something to say that he's mentally ill publicly (the discourse here falls under that category so I'm not talking about any of you). Any doctor who wasn't a piece of shit you asked about it should immediately say that without weeks of personal therapy and personal interviews they would not be able to diagnose any mental illness and then leave it at that instead of what most 'experts' nightly news shows walk in front of a camera do who say all those things and then immediately start to diagnose him or other people like him.

Well, absolutely, there's a difference between an actual professional diagnosis, upon which treatment and consequences rest, and a layman's comments.

But in my completely unprofessional opinion, he's got the emotional intelligence of a small child, is possibly psychopathic or at least somewhat sociopathic (he kind of fluctuates on this), possibly has ADD, is almost certainly in early-stage senility or Alzheimers or such, and so narcissistic as to be a textbook example.

Joxam wrote:I mean while we're not exactly a news site or anything I DO honestly believe that it is unprofessional as hell for anyone other than a normal citizen on like twitter or something to say that he's mentally ill publicly (the discourse here falls under that category so I'm not talking about any of you). Any doctor who wasn't a piece of shit you asked about it should immediately say that without weeks of personal therapy and personal interviews they would not be able to diagnose any mental illness and then leave it at that instead of what most 'experts' nightly news shows walk in front of a camera do who say all those things and then immediately start to diagnose him or other people like him.

I've got pretty mixed feelings on this. Bandy Lee is walking a fine line here but she emphasizes that she's not diagnosing any specific clinical condition from the president's behavior, merely evaluating warning signs that he is dangerous.

We are assessing dangerousness, not making a diagnosis. The two are quite separate: Assessing dangerousness is making a judgment about the situation, not the person. The same person may not be dangerous in a different situation, for example. And it is his threat to public health, not his personal affairs, that is our concern.

A diagnosis, on the other hand, is a personal affair that does not change with situation, and you require all relevant information — including, I believe, a personal interview. Most people who are dangerous do not have a diagnosable mental illness, and most people with mental illness are more likely to be victims than perpetrators.

Also, once you declare danger, you are calling first for containment and removal of weapons from the person and, second, for a full evaluation — which may then yield diagnoses. Until that happens, physicians and mental health professionals are expected to err on the side of safety and can be held legally liable if they fail to act. So we’re merely calling for an urgent evaluation so that we may have definitive answers.

In doing that, we are fulfilling a routine, public expectation of duty that comes with our profession — the only part that is unusual is that this is happening in the presidency. Perhaps this is reason to build in a fitness for duty, or capacity, exam for presidential candidates, just like for military officers, so that this does not happen again.

Adding a "fitness for duty" test on top of the president's annual physical sounds like a reasonable requirement on its face, but of course mental fitness is not as easy to test as physical fitness. Newsweek has more details on what such a test would entail.

Regardless of any mental health evaluation, his behavior is clearly dangerous and erratic and he should not be in office, and his party's unwillingness to impeach is...I don't think it's reasonable to call it a constitutional crisis, because the Constitution has clear steps for what to do here; it's just that one branch of government is not doing its fucking duty. (There is a possibility it could still happen -- Mueller's investigation seems to be going a lot faster than Watergate ever did -- but we don't have any Republicans with the integrity of Barry Goldwater anymore. I still believe there's a line Trump can cross where the Republicans will have no choice but to impeach, but I have no fucking idea what that line is.)

The question of mental health may be an important one, but in an ideal world it would be a moot point, because there are plenty of reasons to remove him from office regardless of any medical diagnoses.

And yes, it's also a fair point that we shouldn't stigmatize mentally ill people; we've had many presidents who suffered from mental illness, and it did not prevent them from executing the duties of the office (Lincoln is the most obvious example, but we can even hold up presidents I really don't like here; W was a terrible president, but I have no reason to believe his history of alcoholism had anything to do with that). Trump is unfit to be President; mental illness may play a role in that. But that's about Trump, and does not generalize to any other president or any other person showing signs of mental illness. I understand that people are wary of another candidate being stigmatized the way Eagleton was; the risk is real and people need to be very careful that we don't start heading in that direction. But I also take Lee's point that she's assessing danger, not a medical condition.

It's telling that the American government has systems to remove a president who is mentally ill, but no system to remove a president who is cruel, greedy, ignorant and stupid. And you don't even need a guy with a degree to speak with him to determine the latter.

Not exactly. The 25th Amendment allows for the VP to declare the president "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" (and the president to challenge the assertion, and Congress to decide), and Article II allows Congress to impeach a president for "high crimes and misdemeanors", but neither of those things is explicitly defined. Congress has the power to impeach but has not; Pence and the cabinet have the power to declare the president incapacitated but have not. The problem isn't that we lack a mechanism for removing him, it's that his party is circling the wagons.

Imagine a bully at a primary school. He's going around hitting other children and stealing their lunch money. A child gets fed up and decides to tell a teacher like he's been taught.

In real life, going to tell the teachers doesn't work, of course. That only amplifies the bullying and the teachers don't really do anything. The actual solution is to physically fight back, because while bullies vary from bully to bully, one aspect they almost all share is that they are cowards who will not under any circumstance fight fair.

In this analogy, however, imagine if the child went to the teachers, and the teacher had been literally bought off by the bully and his friends, so they don't do anything, and instead the teachers make it a school rule that the bully can do whatever he wants.

On Wednesday, Trump held his first press conference of the year, appearing with Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg. The president turned in an erratic performance, boasting about the U.S. selling a plane to Norway that only exists in the video game Call of Duty.

Thad wrote:Not exactly. The 25th Amendment allows for the VP to declare the president "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office" (and the president to challenge the assertion, and Congress to decide), and Article II allows Congress to impeach a president for "high crimes and misdemeanors", but neither of those things is explicitly defined. Congress has the power to impeach but has not; Pence and the cabinet have the power to declare the president incapacitated but have not. The problem isn't that we lack a mechanism for removing him, it's that his party is circling the wagons.

You're the law-talkin' guy, but it seems to me that we're quibbling over whether a supremely unlikely thing is technically impossible or merely practically impossible. Certainly any scenario in which Congress has the votes to declare a president unable to fulfill his duties presupposes that it's already got the votes to impeach (I defer to your knowledge on matters of law, but I am capable of looking at two fractions and determining which one is larger), though I still maintain that in a hypothetical situation where the VP and cabinet say the president is unfit to serve, the likelihood of Congress voting to impeach goes up. Hypothetical it will almost certainly remain; I agree that any discussion of the 25th Amendment being invoked is just cloud talk.

That said, you seem to be suggesting that the 25th was never intended to deal with a situation where the president is incapacitated but says he's not, and...that's clearly not true, because it describes that exact situation and how to resolve it.

I'm not sure where you're getting the "revote every 23 days" interpretation; I read

Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

to say that there's a 23-day period for congress to respond to the president's challenge to the VP's initial declaration, but I don't see any indication that he can challenge again after Congress makes its determination. That would make sense, and I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm just saying you haven't shown your work. If you can cite a source that's not yourself, that would help.

The part you quoted is quite clear. Pence makes the declaration, with cabinet support. Trump sends the letter to Congress, reinstating himself, and fires the disloyal cabinet. Pence would have another declaration waiting to be sent, knowing this would happen, and then Congress has to assemble within two days even if not in session, and then has twenty one days to decide the matter - at most, total of 23. If and only if they side with Pence by a two thirds majority does Pence remain Acting President - a pocket veto reinstates Trump. And if they do side with Pence, Trump sends another letter the same day.

The first sentence of that paragraph, the part you didn't quote, provides the continued ability to challenge.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.

Trump gets to keep challenging until reinstated, and only stays not president while Congress is deliberating.

I never said the 25th wasn't intended to deal with a situation where the president is incapacitated but says he's not, I said it's not intended and not able to deal with a situation where the president is not actually incapacitated. It's both technically and practically incapable of functioning as a method for coup. If you have a two thirds majority in both chambers willing to perpetuate this state of affairs, you're already well past the point where impeachment has happened. If you don't, Pence trying this doesn't mean the odds of Trump getting impeached goes up, it means Trump still has the support of Congress and Pence gets thrown under the bus.